


all the rowboats (in oil paintings)

by szikra



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Leo is captain of the Argo, M/M, Museums, Nico accidentally becomes worshipped, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-05-01 00:16:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5185022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/szikra/pseuds/szikra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico keeps lurking in the museum, hoping that he would see his crush there, when he finds the painting of Argo II.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the rowboats (in oil paintings)

**Author's Note:**

> Older work finally revisited and posted.  
> Somewhat inspired by the song "All The Rowboats" by Regina Spektor.

“FASTEN THE ROPES” yelled Leo. He was shivering in the rain, his clothes were all wet, making almost no difference between being aboard the ship or in the ocean. The dark sky rumbled, the waves throw the ship back and forth.

His battle with the elements seemed to go on forever.

~~~

Nico loved museums. There was silence, there were the memories of forgotten people, like the ghosts of past, there was dust to make him remember of the air people breathed eons ago.

Sometimes he just sat down in the middle of an empty room, surrounded by sculptures and paintings, he lied on his jacket or took his books in his laps, and solved his homework in the silence.

And other times, he tried to melt into the shadows as he followed that boy.

He loved pictures of ships. He found a new favorite: the Argo II by R. E. Dare in the contemporary section, a Greek trireme in the storm, in thick patches of oil paint. Black and green everywhere, it made Nico nauseated, like he felt the rain and the waves on his skin, and the never stopping rocking of the ship – he never saw anything that made him feel this intense, and it fascinated him.

It was just like the boy.

He was taller than Nico and also a few years older, and he was like untamed sea: his laugh echoed through the museum halls. He was black haired, his skin lightly tanned and his green eyes never stopped in the room and he made Nico feel sick because he was drawn towards this boy, like the wild, cruel ocean enchanted him.

“I hate him” Nico told the picture of Argo II.

~~~

The Argo II was Leo’s ship. He designed it, he built it, and then he stole it from the people whom ordered it. But it was his destiny to have it, he knew it, he had to run away from the world, he had to sail away with his baby to find peace.

Maybe it was the curse of the sea, but he was followed by storms every single day. The nights were calm, but the sun never had a chance to rise and the only light they saw was the lightning.

Maybe it was the curse of her. Because he never went back to her once she let him go, because her love were chains and not even escaping her island let him completely shake them down. He loved Calypso. But he loved his ship more and that was the only thing that could set him free.

The ship had another curse, more curious than any other, and his men kept whispering about it. They were scared of mirrors and reflections, and Leo understood their worries, because you could see figures in them, watching the ship. At first there was only a young girl, with lovely red hair and freckles on her nose, but then there came others, always changing figures, looking at them or just passing in their mirrors and windows and shiny gold coins.

And then, there came Shadow.

Okay, Leo had no idea what was he called, but he named him Shadow. The boy looked like he was around Leo’s age, but then, he was most probably a god or a spirit and you could never know with them. Calypso looked like a maiden and she grieved the death of her grown-up children. Shadow had shaggy black hair and dark eyes, not dark blue, it was rather like obsidian, and he kept watching them with those curious eyes. His men told Leo that they saw Shadow, too, and some of them even prayed to Shadow to stop the neverending storm.

“If you love us, save us” Leo whispered to his mirror. Shadow looked away, behind himself, and he seemed to be really sad.

~~~

It took Nico two weeks to notice him.

The boy was really small on the picture, and seemed to be young, but the clearly dominated the ship. He must have been the captain, he was soaked, he screamed with his men, and fought with wind and water, like he had the means to win over the elements.

Nico hoped that he didn’t die. He had impish features and tanned skin, and Nico felt compassion for him for no reason.

“You will be my friend” he decided.

Then he heard a familiar voice and he had to turn his head to look behind his back, because the other boy walked inside the room and it made Nico felt like he was battling with storm, too, like the cold rain soaked into his soul. The boy’s hands curled around a pretty blonde girl, who kept whispering about the pictures and art styles, and periods, and she clearly knew a lot about what they saw, maybe more than Nico himself.

The boy never seemed to be this calm. His eyes were like the water on Monet’s Water Lilies and it made Nico’s chest hurt. He picked up his bag from the floor and forced himself to walk out calmly.

“I’m so happy that she did it, Percy, you cannot imagine. Rachel’s a genius.” Nico heard the girl say it, and he had to glance back. They were looking at the Argo II.

~~~

“SAVE US” Leo screamed. He didn’t understood how he could see Shadow, but he was in the clouds, his eyes red and his shoulders shaking. “IF YOU LOVE US, SAVE US.”

A wave threw him across the deck, and he saw his youngest sailor falling into the water.

“MAN OVERBOARD!”

“JEREMY! IT’S JEREMY!”

Lightning ripped through the darkness. The boy kicked the water desperately, and Leo just stood there, keeping eye contract with him.

“GET A BOUY, GALE, QUICK” he shouted.

“GET INTO THROWING DISTANCE” Leo cried to the helmsmen. The ship started to turn around, but the wind was against them and Leo was terrified that they would crush Jeremy. Shadow was still inside the clouds, but he didn’t look at them. “IF YOU ARE SEEING OUR SUFFERINGS, MAKE THEM STOP. LIGHT YOUR FIRE ON THE TOP OUR MASTS. SAVE US, SHADOW, SAVE JEREMY, SAVE THE ARGO II. I’M BEGGING WITH MY LIFE.”

And then, suddenly, his face seemed to get closer before it vanished, and Leo felt like the wind suddenly turned warm.

The rain and the wind stopped. The ship was in position, and Gale could throw the lifebuoy, and Jeremy, crying and shivering, got aboard. He was spitting water, and Gale had to slap his back a few times to make him cough up more.

It was the first day of their life without the storm, and Leo had to wipe his eyes because the drops in it were finally something else than rain or seawater.

~~~

The first time he went back to the picture after he saw Percy with his girlfriend, he cried, he cried in front of the painting. He didn’t even see the storm and the ship, he didn’t notice the sailor in the water. He only saw the captain, as desperate as he was and he had to turn his head away.

“I’m so stupid” he whispered. “Having a crush on someone I’ve never talked to. Someone I have no chance with.”

He looked around the museum room, but he was alone, so he took the courage to touch the paint, the red letters saying RED at the corner.

“Don’t die” he said to the captain. “Don’t die, okay. We will survive this together.” And he kissed the letters, like it meant anything, like it meant that Rachel Elizabeth Dare painted him a friend.

~~~

Jeremy died the next week in pneumonia. The sailed the dark sea in relative calmness, they had time to grieve him, to say goodbye to his light body they carefully placed into a casket. Leo made it himself, because he needed to be alone, he needed to feel something else than misery. He needed to feel the pain of splinters in his fingers, and his muscles working as he nailed the wood together. He needed to get dizzy from the smell of the white paint and he needed to dissolve in writing Jeremy’s name on the casket, and… and he needed to feel something else than overwhelming relief that came from the fact that they were saved by Shadow.

They didn’t see him since he calmed down the sea for them and the sailors prayed for him to keep the weather calm. He had more power than Calypso, but Leo still feared her.

“Come back, Shadow” he prayed on the night they let the water wash away Jeremy’s body. “I’m scared. I know that she’s still after me, and she is mad that I left her. I know that it’s only the calm before the next storm, and… At least save my crew. They didn’t ask for my curses.”

Leo sighed.

“I miss the land.” he admitted, looking into his mirror, but Shadow was not there. “We all do. We love the sea and we miss the land, but I’d give up the sea to save them.”

He missed Shadow, he missed him more than he missed Calypso, because Shadow had always been gentle with them. Shadow’s face meant safeness even if he was a cruel god, but Leo never saw this cruelty in Calypso’s face. She misled him with sweet words, while Shadow was straight with them.

“If you love us, save us.” he whispered.

The mirror only showed his weary face. He faked a smile, like he always did.

“Well, that was a good talk.”

He rolled his eyes and started to strip off his shirt, getting ready for sleep. He was tired, tired beyond sleepiness. He wanted to find a port already, and they should have found one by now but Calypso tricked them, she tricked them all the time. Tomorrow he needed face with the problem of the supplies and properly divide it into portions so they would last for a longer while. He wanted to sail the Argo II forever, but not with this price.

He wanted to go back home and tell Jason that he did a good job with their cargo and he wanted to visit his mother’s grave again and he wanted to…

“I guess… I guess I just want someone to listen to me” Leo heard a voice he had never heard before. “Because I really don’t have anyone. I have Hazel, but she… she lives in San Francisco and she would only get worried about me.”

Leo turned around. The mirror faintly showed Shadow. His obsidian eyes seemed to be dim.

“Are you talking to me?”

“See, I didn’t want to have a crush on him. I basically know nothing about him. He helped to arrange an exhibition for a friend, or something, and he is a college student, he works at the aquarium. I wanted to go there just to see him, but I guess I won’t. Oh god, I must sound like a creeper. I just… I just fell hard for him without any intention. But it’s pointless.”

A god in love? A god in love sharing his pain with Leo?

One of the most absurd things of his life. Leo didn’t know whether to make a joke of it or to never ever mention it again.

“Errr, what did I exactly do to earn this heartfelt moment?”

“But well, he has a girlfriend and he most probably was never interested in boys and I was so stupid, for thinking anything, like, I’d have never started to talk with him, let alone asking him out and…”

“You have no idea how easy it is to open for new… experiences. Like, put him on a ship for a few months. I’m not saying everyone is into the same gender but, well…”

“Coming back to here was my best decision” Shadow said. Leo grimaced, Shadow clearly didn’t hear him. “I’m happier here than anywhere else, no matter where he is.”

“Glad to hear that, man. Maybe you could save our backs next time, too.”

And Shadow smiled a little, and Leo felt his chest grew warm.

~~~

Nico softly touched the Argo II. The paint felt silky under his fingertips.

“I missed this place.”

He breathed in and out.

The boat on the picture seemed to sail on calmer waters today. A few rays of sun broke through the thick clouds and colored the top of the waves yellow. He couldn’t find the captain, but Nico felt like he was safe.

“Take care, Captain.”

~~~

He went to the museum every day, for weeks, just to calm down. He was writing an essay in front of the Argo II and he was so absorbed in his homework that he didn’t notice Percy, only when he sat down next to him.

“Are you seriously writing homework in a museum?”

Nico glared at him.

“It was an optimal environment until you came in” he hissed and slammed his notebook.

“Look, I just… there is something I need to talk with you, but I didn’t want to bother you, okay?” Percy sighed. “My name is Percy, and I know that you love Rachel’s painting, and she kind of has a message for you… We could sit down in the cafeteria and talk about it if you are interested.”

Nico got completely confused.

“And how on earth does she know me and why doesn’t she come to talk with me if she so wants to?” he asked and pushed his notebook into his bag. “I’m going home.”

“Hey! Hey, please, listen to me!”

Percy’s fingers caught the hem of Nico’s jacket. The museum attendant shot them a warning look.

“Please. It’s really important.”

“Okay” Nico breathed. He tried to not panic as Percy led him to the cafeteria.He bought hot chocolate for both of them and set the cup before Nico. He could feel Percy’s ocean smell as the other boy leant across his shoulder, and it still pained him. Percy sit down across him.

“So… Rachel. She’s a sweet girl and an amazing artist, we became friends in high school. She’s great.”

Nico crossed his arms. “And?”

“Okay, so, this will sound crazy, but… I should just show it to you instead of speaking about it.” Percy took out a little red sketchbook from his bag. “This is hers. Look, these are her first sketches for the Argo II. She has bigger sketches of the captain. Err… His name is Leon or Leo or something lionlike, I can’t remember well. And then, after she painted the Argo II, she drew this.”

Percy turned the page in the sketchbook.

The pencil drawing showed the Argo II from its other side. But the most interesting thing about the picture was the clouds, and the face in the clouds, that looked exactly like Nico’s.

Nico looked at the drawing for a while, then stared at Percy.

“This is the worst joke ever.”

“Look, I’m not joking with you, okay? She has drawn you and she has never seen you before. There are lot of drawings about you, okay, not just this one. Just skim her sketches. I recognized you because I saw you in the museum before.”

Nico turned page after page in the book. There was he in the mirror of the captain, the captain on his knees, and the face in the mirror was unmistakably Nico’s; with the bags under his eyes and that small mole over his right eyebrow, and his aviator jacket.

“And what now?” he asked Percy. “You come here with these pictures, creeping me completely out. What did you thought? That I’ll explain your freaky friends for you?”  
Percy looked hurt.

“She is one of the best people I know and she wanted you to have the sketchbook. We don’t even know your name but she wanted you to have the sketchbook, because I told her that every time I come to the museum to collect data to one of my essays, you are sitting in front of the Argo II.”

Nico looked into his lap in his shame. He felt dizzy from the hotness in his ears.

“It’s Nico. My name is Nico di Angelo.”

Percy gently smiled at him.

“Will you take the sketchbook?”

Nico nodded. “Can I have her number to thank her?”

“Sure.”

~~~

That was it.

The storm. The biggest storm of their lives.

Leo was at the helm, tied to his place and his muscles hurt from trying to keep the ship from turning over. His helmsman had most probably found his grave in the sea by now, because the water swallowed him an hour ago. His lips were trembling and they were most probably purple from the cold. The rain soaked into his clothes and he shivered, he had no idea whether he was crying or only the rain poured down on his face, and the few sailors who were still onboard and not in the sea, did their best to survive in complete silence.

Leo didn’t even know if there were any voice, or he stood there in the wind, on top of the lurching waves, playing with their boat, throwing them back and forth, in a completely mute environment. Like silent movies. Like a neverending ringing in his ear, because he became deaf from the white noise of rain and the waves and the cracking of the thunders.

All he wished was to see Shadow’s face again.

“If you love me, save us.” he whispered but he didn’t hear his own voice.

~~~

“Uhm, this is Nico di Angelo, am I talking with Rachel?”

“Yes, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, can I help you?”

“I just wanted to thank you the sketchbook. I really-really love the…”

“IT’S YOU” the girl in the phone screamed. “You are their shadow! Look, you might think that I’m completely out of my mind, but you have to help them. They will die if you don’t help them. Save the Argo II. I have no idea how do you have to help them, but you… You are the only one who can. Go back to the museum. Do what you have do, I don’t care, I’m just so-so afraid for them. Wait, I’m sending you my last sketch of Leo.”

A beep signaled that Nico got the picture.

“I see you, you know” Rachel said. “I see that Percy broke your heart. I see that you buried your sister. I see that you are in their prayers. I see a lot of things and even if they doesn’t make sense, I know they are true. Just look at the picture, okay?”

She hung up, and Nico opened the file she sent with disbelief and confusion.

The captain, Leo was at the helm and he hold the wheel with bleeding hands, rain and tears flowing on his cheeks and Nico’s heart hurt more than it did when he looked at Percy.

But it was just a picture.

He uploaded it to his computer and printed it, pinned Leo above his desk.

It was just a picture.

He made copies of Rachel’s sketchbook because he didn’t dare to put the actual drawings on his walls, but he put his face in the cloud next to the Leo at the stern.

“If you love me, save us.”

These were just pictures. Why would fall for a painted boy? That was even sillier than having a crush on the boy in the museum.

~~~

“If you love me, save us.”

Nico wasn’t sure if he actually heard this in his dream, but the line kept ringing in his ears all day.

He run to the museum after school, and he stood at the Argo II panting, with tears in his eyes.

“I love you. I do. I don’t know how, and why, maybe we are just sharing the same kind of misery, but I love you. I do, I do.”

The waves in the painting were darker than ever. The captain (Leo, he reminded himself) was tied to the helm, and his palms were bleeding from keeping the helm in the storm.

“What do I do now?”

He took out his keys and looked around. The attendant was not at her place, so he pressed his key to the bottom of the canvas, and tore it up on an inch.

Nothing happened. Nico felt a tear rolling down on his cheek.

“I shouldn’t cry about not being able to save some people on a painting.” He wiped down the teardrop and absentmindedly touched Leo’s head with his wet finger. “I’m sorry. I’m a mess. I’m hearing things. I’m getting set up to stupid jokes, and crushing on the worst people ever. I’m sorry.”

And then, the painting started dripping.

Through the hole he cut into the canvas, salt water dripped to the floor until it flowed down in a little stream. The colors of the painting seemed to get lighter, blue and green instead of black and deep indigo, and Nico’s shoes and jeans started to get wet. Sunlight broke through the dark clouds of the painting, like little yellow streaks of paint, and the water just came down from the picture, and then it was like it was stuck in an invisible container, it started to become one big mass of water, and Nico stepped away from it as soon as he could.

The salt water started to become human-shaped, and Nico soon started to see colors, white shirt, brown skin, and black hair, until it was really, really a boy lying on the floor, wet, with bleeding hands, coughing up water.

“Thank you, Shadow.” Leo said in raspy voice. “Thank you. Thank you.”


End file.
